At the end of October we had a trip up north and stopped at Banchory for an hour or so.

The Banchory War Memorial is very unusual in shape yet extremely elegant with a square cross-section but edge-on to the main road rather than side-on, flaring out a little at the base and surmounted by a pyramidal top with a samll cross. The lower portions contain names for WW2. The main columns commemorate WW1.

This view from the other side shows the memorial gardens and the cross a bit better:-

In October I was in Edinburgh three Saturdays in a row. The third was the only one where I didn’t go to a football game. Instead the good lady and I went to view Gladstone’s Land, wandering the Royal Mile first.

The Canongate Memorial is a plaque set into the wall of the Tollbooth in Canongate, towards the bottom of the Royal Mile. Canongate was at one time a separate burgh from Edinburgh which is why it has its own memorial.

This contains WW1 names only. The WW2 dead are commemorated in Canongate Kirk.

We were in Perth a few weeks ago and discovered the memorial to the employees of the famous former Dye and Cleaning Works, Pullar’s of Perth, who died in the two World Wars. It’s set into the wall of Pullar’s House in Kinnoull Street. We don’t normally walk past it so it was serendipitous.

After Harwich/Dovercourt we headed to Blenheim Palace which is close to Oxford, specifically by the village of Woodstock. The journey took much longer than Google Maps had suggested it would so we didn’t really have enough time there. Though we saw most of the rooms on show the Palace is huge and the grounds enormous; so much so we’ll have to go back to take it all in. (The entry gives you the option of free return within a year. Maybe in spring.)

We wandered round Woodstock itself – the buildings are made from Cotswold stone, very warm in appearance.

The War memorial is situated in the churchyard and has a simple elegant cross design on a plinth inscribed, “To the Memory of the Fallen 1914-18 1939-45 In Sure and Certain Hope.”

I didn’t expect to see War Memorials in out of the way places in The Netherlands. The country didn’t take part in the Great War but was of course invaded by Germany in 1940. The Dutch were unable to combat the Luftwaffe bombers – the centre of Rotterdam was destroyed – and surrendered to avoid destruction of their other cities. The fighting lasted seven days.

But then there were also the almost constant Allied bombing raids over Germany in the latter part of the war (the run-up to D-Day excepted) which flew over The Netherlands en route and on return.

It seems two such aeroplanes were shot down over or near Opende.

This view shows both memorials:-

The distinctive headstones of Commonwealth war graves can be seen. I assume these were erected after the war.

The inscription on the brick wall reads :-

In Memory of the seven heroes whose plane crashed in Opende, 15 Feb 1944.
The Residents of Opende

This is the other end of the memorial:

The aircraft was a Halifax bomber with seven crew, six of whom were Australian. It was shot down. The details are here.

Links to more information about the crew can be found on this webpage.

The other plaque on the site is for a US B 17, “Sky Queen” which came down on 28 Jul 1943.